With the ghosts of Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Eisenhower looking down, President Bush finally admitted today that he has been touched by the true cost of war:

For the first time, Bush revealed a personal way in which he has tried to acknowledge the sacrifice of soldiers and their families: He has given up golf.

"I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf," he said. "I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal."

In unity and spirit with Americans who will never see a child or a parent again on account of his policies, George W. Bush made the heart-wrenching decision to take a five-year hiatus from the game. He chose to make this sacrifice several months after the invasion of Iraq.

Bush said he made that decision after the August 2003 bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad, which killed Sergio Vieira de Mello, the top U.N. official in Iraq.

"I remember when de Mello, who was at the U.N., got killed in Baghdad as a result of these murderers taking this good man's life," he said. "I was playing golf - I think I was in central Texas - and they pulled me off the golf course and I said, 'It's just not worth it anymore to do.'"

If past Commanders-in-Chief were alive, they'd retch at such a statement from this wartime "leader." Imagine Washington at Valley Forge. Imagine Lincoln on the eve of the Civil War. Imagine what Truman went through in August 1945. And then listen to this:

"I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf," he said. "I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal."

Of course, George Bush, Sr.--a combat veteran himself--was never so crass when he made the decision in 1991 to commit the most troops to combat since Vietnam. And if he wasn't ashamed of his son before, I think it's pretty safe to assume he will be now.